Error and/or relief
Under section 654, the trial court should not have punished the defendant for both robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
First Holding:
We review the trial court’s decision to sentence the defendant separately for the robbery conviction and the assault with a deadly weapon conviction, for substantial evidence that he harbored a separate intent and objective for each offense. Here, there is no substantial evidence to support the trial court’s implicit finding that the defendant’s intent in assaulting the victim was separate from his intent to rob him of the item.
Authority:
PEN 654
People v. Dowdell (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 1388, 1414
Second Holding:
Section 654(a) provides that an act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law may be punished under either of such provisions, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision. Section 654 bars the imposition of multiple sentences for a single act or omission, even though the act or omission may violate more than one provision of the Penal Code. The purpose of the protection against multiple punishment is to insure that the defendant’s punishment will be commensurate with his criminal liability.
Authority:
PEN 654
People v. Dowdell (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 1388, 1414
Third Holding:
Whether a course of criminal conduct is divisible and therefore gives rise to more than one act within the meaning of section 654 depends on the intent and objective of the actor. If all the offenses were incident to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of such offenses but not for more than one. Whether an assault was committed with the intent to facilitate a robbery is a fact-bound determination.
Authority:
People v. Rodriguez (2009) 47 Cal.4th 501, 507
People v. Sandoval (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 1288, 1299
Fourth Holding:
Additionally, temporal proximity, or the lack of it, can be a relevant consideration in determining the divisibility of a course of conduct.
Authority:
People v. Nunez (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 625, 630 [Use of hammer to facilitate carjacking could not be punished as both the robbery and assault with a deadly weapon]
Fifth Holding:
A robbery occurs when defendant uses force or fear in resisting attempts to regain the property or in attempting to remove the property from the owner’s immediate presence regardless of the means by which defendant originally acquired the property.
Authority:
People v. Estes (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 23, 27-28